The Golden Compass - A- (book and movie) and Other Religious Stuff

On Christmas Eve, as Beau and I ate our lovely dinner at home, he pointed to something under my plate. "What's that?" he asked. It was a ticket stub. I thought it was my leftover "I Am Legend" ticket stub that I had just fished out of my coat pocket earlier and must have somehow dropped onto the table. I picked it up and read it. "GOLDENCOMP" it said. Huh?

I wasn't too quick on the uptake that night.

I finally did realize, with a bit of prodding from Beau, that he had surprised me with tickets to see The Golden Compass. It was one of my Christmas presents and I was thrilled. I was currently reading the book, loving it, and really wanted to see the movie.

Since I have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly, and I *blush* often buy copies of People magazine for my bathroom time pleasure, I always have a pretty good idea of what various critics think of movies before I go see them. Sometimes I think they can be a bit influential, but it's always nice when they turn out NOT to be.

I heard all the *yawn* controversy over The Golden Compass long before I read the lengthy EW review on it. I know how many claim it's anti-Catholic, etc. I bought the book and decided to make up my own mind regarding it. I must say, I am REALLY enjoying this book, and though I haven't finished it yet, and despite the fact I've heard the series just gets darker and darker, I wouldn't say that the book is anti-Catholic. In fact, the story reminds me a great deal of the wonderful book and movie, The Handmaid's Tale, which is a cautionary tale against the dangers of a ruling theocracy. Theocracy does not always = Evil Christians (see Iran). And any group that tries to control the actions of the masses will have some kind of ideology behind it. I think you have to if you're going to be so uber-ly-gung ho on dictatorial rule of any kind. Maybe my opinion will change as I read through the series and more of the plot opens up. Maybe the author has an ax to grind with the church. I know I do, and I could quickly find about 10 friends with the same attitude.

One memory that still irks me was from when I was a child. I had this best friend - a fantastic one - named Mary Catherine Phelan (just try and guess what HER religion was). I was raised Lutheran, and had dutifully gone through baptismal, communion, and confirmation. My grandmother, irate when she learned I was, as usual, procrastinating, forced me to skip school one day and go to the library so I could write a 20 page paper on the life of Jesus for my confirmation requirements. ANYWAY, Mary's very religious family would take me to church, but would never let me leave the pew to receive communion. After having gone through the various rigors to become "eligible" to receive communion in my own church, I was outraged to be refused. Yeah yeah, you can say all you want about it being different denominations, beliefs, etc. But all I knew then, and still agree with now, was that I had come from a church which every Sunday announced, "All those who wish to share in the blessing that is communion please feel free to come forward," and now was in a church that said, "No, you're not one of us, you can't do it."

I went up anyway, and basically enraged her parents. I was not a disobedient child, not even remotely, but that was something that seemed so wrong to me at the time, and still today.

Again, I digress. So, that is just one of my own personal grudges against Catholicism, so if the author has his own, I won't begrudge him. It's certainly not the d(a)emon book it's made out to be. It has many wonderful concepts that you can turn over in your mind, and man, who WOULDN'T long for a wonderful daemon of their own? Just contemplating the concept of the soul residing outside the body is enough to happily chew on intellectually. I like it.

Many have complained that the movie is a highly diluted version of the book, removing all religious controversy and philosophies in order to make the movie appealing to a broad audience (especially since they planned from the start to make all three books into films). Sure, I can see that; it's always disappointing when movie makers wuss out and are not true to the real teeth and claws of the book. But I can be forgiving.

If you have read the book, you'll notice that the movie is true to the plot, but used TREMENDOUS amounts of "creative license" when tweaking numerous details. Lines and actions from the book are given to different characters in the movie and scenes are done in different locations or a different chronological order. I was surprised that this didn't bother me. I guess after so many people went apeshit over the Harry Potter movies, which I have loved, I am not so serious now about "being true to (every fucking detail of) the book." In all honesty, despite the large amount of differences between book and movie, I find The Golden Compass to be utterly faithful to the book's message and story, if not, a bit lightened for all those don't-touch-my-religion(!!!) Christians, which didn't work anyway since they're still pissed off.

I loved it though. I don't happen to think it's all CGI wonders and no plot, but perhaps that's because I'm filling in the holes in my own mind as I watch the film. It certainly didn't have the plot trip-ups that I Am Legend suffered from. I thought Nicole Kidman's "Mrs. Coulter" was both utterly beautiful and utterly terrifying. The young actress, Dakota Blue Richards, who played the main character of Lyra, was just as charming, clever, and defiant as her literary counterpart. Daniel Craig, whom I found handsome for the first time ever in a film, as Lord Asriel, is fantastic at saying more with his eyes than his mouth. And again, the whole concept of daemon's was fascinating (particularly the way they perish). The only tiny ick I had was the use of Ian McKellen's voice as the formidable Iorek Byrnison - an armored polar bear. Haven't I had enough of him fulfilling these epic, powerful, sci-fi roles? Too familiar for me.

But read the book and/or see the movie for yourself - and make up your own mind.